It is well known that children typically have short attention spans and only become seriously motivated to engage in activities that excite their imagination. Therefore, it is generally difficult to motivate a child to spend a significant amount of time pursuing such beneficial activities as working with computers. This is particularly true with younger children, who have extremely short attention spans.
Parents today are increasingly concerned with providing their children with the skills that will benefit them later in life. It is often the parent's desire to motivate their children to acquire these skills at a very young age. These children do not understand that they are developing skills, but rather see only the impersonal apparatus with which they must associate. The impersonal apparatus is sometimes perceived as intimidating to the child, swaying his emotions from the natural desire to learn over to the realm of fear and hostility.
Younger children may also feel uncomfortable when deprived of the direct attention of an adult. It is necessarily true that to become proficient at an activity, the child must be permitted to spend some time practicing without the direct supervision of an adult. Also, it is not practical for an adult to always be present when the child is so occupied. Having the child pursue such activities without the constant direct attention of an adult may exagerate the child's feeling of hostility and discomfort.
It is also well known that many children have behavioral problems and learning disabilities. Many times computer games and educational programs can help overcome these problems. The problem is how to make computers and the like more attractive to such children. These apparatus often appear to a child to be plain and boring, if not somewhat intimidating.
Many adults also perceive computers as complex and intimidating. Making such an adult's computer appear friendlier would certainly tend to increase productivity while reducing stress and fatigue.
Stuffed animals are well known in the prior art for use as playthings by children. Such stuffed animals typically have as contiguous anatomical members a head, a body connected to the head, two arms connected to the body, and two legs with feet also connected to the body. All of the anatomical members taken together therefore comprise a plaything with which children may entertain themselves.
Such stuffed animals typically have a plush outer covering and a soft inner filling. They are designed to be appealing to children and thereby encourage their use as playthings.
Such prior art stuffed animals are always used as playthings themselves. They are not designed to encourage the use of other objects. For example, a small stuffed animal toy is not capable of encouraging constructive behavior and learning activities. It is not capable of encouraging the child to sit at a desk and read a book, or work with a computer, for instance.
As such although the prior art has recognized the appeal of stuffed animals to children, the prior art has not applied this recognition to the problem of making computers and the like less intimidating to children.